New meaning to “contemporary art”

by CAMILLE CHIN  October 2011

“Who would have thought the telephone could bring back drawing?” David Hockney said. The 74-year-old British artist began working with an iPhone and its Brushes app in 2008. Since then, he’s created hundreds of finger-drawn images, from still life and self-portraits to flowers and landscapes, that he’d email to friends. Now, 100 of those iPhone drawings will be displayed on 20 iPods and 100 iPad drawings on 25 iPads at David Hockney’s Fresh Flowers on now through January 1, 2012 at the Royal Ontario Museum’s Institute for Contemporary Culture in Toronto. Twenty works will feature playback animations of the pieces being drawn from start to finish. Fresh Flowers will also include two artist-at-work films, eight large-scale animated projections of recent iPad drawings and a nine-minute triptych slide show of 169 images. The exhibit does indeed have the ability to stay “fresh” since Hockney is able to insert new drawings into the touring show via email. Adults $24; seniors and students $21; kids four to 14 $16. To download a complimentary fresh flower: rom.on.ca/hockney/index.php.

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